


Doomed

by KatLeePT



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 21:14:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6210346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatLeePT/pseuds/KatLeePT
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows the tales.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doomed

They say this is him, the few Goblins who can remember what he looked like before he became their King. They say this is him, but yet he does not remember ever looking like the boy upon whom he now gazes. Still, he can see the similarities in the stony face, the defiant gaze, and the slightly pointed ear. He can see how he could be this boy, or this boy could have become him, but he doesn't remember much of when he was young.

He catches wisps of words and songs sometimes fleeing through his mind. There's a strong, male voice he hears speaking to him in the past from time to time, but there is only one song which he can name. It is the lullaby his mother sang to him, but where did she sing it? he wonders. Was it here in the castle? Was she a Queen of the Goblins? If so, did she take his father's hand gladly, or did he force her into marriage, as he himself has tried to do to many a girl?

What were his parents like? Was either a Goblin, or was he created to keep his own father from becoming a Goblin? He knows the tales; he's heard the whispers. If he does not have a hire by his five thousandth birthday, he will be too old to maintain his mortal flesh and become a Goblin himself. Once a Goblin, he remembers the words with a shudder of distaste and a fear to which he will not admit, always a Goblin.

He removes a silk glove and traces the hard lines of the boy's face in the portrait with a bare finger. He was so angry, so set to rule the world and have it obey him. He was determined to have his way, and for years now, Jareth has tried his best to make certain everything in the Labyrinth, from the greatest and smelliest beasts like Ludo to the smallest details like the marks on the Labyrinth's stony floor, adhere to him.

Yet there is one who will not adhere. She alone has the power to make or break him, as the mortals say. She alone can free him of his curse, but still, she refuses to love him. He turned the world upside down for her. He took her baby brother as she asked and then later allowed her to take him back. He's done everything she's asked of him, and all he wants is return is a lifetime of dedication, a lifetime of love to free him of the curse that looms over his head.

He fears, however, that that love will never come. Gazing into the eyes of the boy in the portrait, he recognizes the truth. It doesn't matter who he was. Regardless of rather or not he was ever actually this lad, regardless of whatever his childhood may or may not have been like, he is growing old. Each night makes him wearier, draining more of his power away, and each day brings him closer to the day he will awaken old, gnarled, green, and utterly disgusting. Only one person could have saved him, and he knows she will never look at him in kindness again, not that she ever did before.

"Oh, Sarah," he breathes, "what have you done to me?" Yet even as he voices the query that haunts him, he knows the truth runs even deeper. She's not just trapped him. She's trapped herself, as well. He watches her every day in his crystal balls. He knows she is not happy. He knows she continues in her life unloved, and she always will.

There are many old legends Jareth knows well, and it is partly because of one of those that he knows they are both trapped, all by her doing. She will never find love in the mortal world. He will never find a girl to break his curse. With a wave of his elegant hand, the portrait transforms. He no longer observes a painting of himself; instead, he watches over her as she cries over some new upset in the world above. "Oh, Sarah," he whispers, tracing her tears, "you've doomed us both, my soul. That's what you've done."

  
**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.


End file.
